computer HELP needed

[tpking]

i have a computer that says the hard drive may crash i installed a new on and used the computer restore disk to add all the files but it still wont boot the OS... how can i make the hard drive bootable? i did the complete format and OS re install and nothing .. any ideas?

[Jay FX4]

There are plenty of disk cloning software programs out there. I would suggest making an image of your existing hard drive and cloning it to the new one. This way your OS is intact, along with all your programs and crap. 99% of the time, you slap the new drive in and it's business as usual.

[tpking]

i cant find a cloneing program that actually works

[Jay FX4]

Rereading your post, it's possible that your computer is looking at your drive as a slave drive. There might be a jumper you have to switch on the drive for it to be recognized as the master. Or perhaps there's a BIOS setting....

[tpking]

i tried running the hard drive alone as the master and it said no OS ...

[97RangerXLT]

somehting else to consider.. when you formatted the drive, did you set the partition to active?

An actual install of windows will do this for you, but if you are using a restore disk, you may have to do some of the low level stuff yourself to get it prepared for the restore disk.

So I would get a copy of the drives set up software (probably came with the drive on a cd unless you bought an "oem" drive. go in and set up the drive to be used for the first time. follow the instructions on setting up the primary partition and activating it.

Then do your restore thing.

AJ

[Jay FX4]

Don't know if this would be any help, but if you need software for creating/managing partitions:
http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partition-Manager/3000-2248_4-10863346.html
Very simple to use.

[superdave1984]

If that was the disk that came with your PC, it probably isn't a full version of the OS. It requires the recovery partition that was on the original drive. Download another copy of XP and use the key on the sticker.